"It happened several years ago that I was crossing the Atlantic, and when I had sufficiently recovered from seasickness to sit out on the deck I came across Colonel Ingersoll, and of all subjects of discussion you can imagine we fell upon the subject of art, and we went at it hot and heavy. So I said to him to-night that I had a rod in pickle for him and that he was not to know anything about it until it was displayed. "I now call upon him to talk to us about art, and if he talks now as he talked on the deck of the steamer I do not know whether it would clear the room, but it would make a sensation in this State and country. I have great pleasure in announcing Colonel Ingersoll, to speak on the subject of art--or on any other subject, for no matter upon what he speaks his words are always welcome." New York Press, December 2, 1891. TOAST: ART. I PRESUME I take about as much interest in what that picture represents as anybody else. I believe that it has been said this evening that the world will never be civilized so long as differences between nations are settled by gun or cannon or sword. Barbarians still settle their personal differences with clubs or arms, and finally, when they agree to submit their differences to their peers, to a court, we call them civilized. Now, nations sustain the same relations to each other that barbarians sustain; that is, they settle their differences by force; each nation being the judge of the righteousness of its cause, and its judgment depending entirely--or for the most part--on its strength; and the strongest nation is the nearest right. Now, until nations submit their differences to an international court--a court with the power to carry its judgment into effect by having the armies and navies of all the rest of the world pledged to support it--the world will not be civilized. Our differences will not be settled by arbitration until more of the great nations set the example, and until that is done, I am in favor of the United States being armed. Until that is done it will give me joy to know that another magnificent man-of-war has been launched upon our waters. And I will tell you why. Look again at that picture. There is another face; it is not painted there, and yet without it that picture would not have been painted, and that is the face of U. S. Grant. The olive branch, to be of any force, to be of any beneficent power, must be offered by the mailed hand. It must be offered by a nation which has back of the olive branch the force. It cannot be offered by weakness, because then it will excite only ridicule. The powerful, the imperial, must offer that branch. Then it will be accepted in the true spirit; otherwise not. So, until the world is a little more civilized I am in favor of the largest guns that can be made and the best navy that floats. I do not want any navy unless we have the best,